I do a lot of filtering during sermons these days, but one Sunday morning this winter, maybe even Easter, I heard the words “A seed must first die.” A pretty good point, somewhat obvious, but I hadn’t thought of it before.

Our peas — probably seeds sprouting on the windowsill when I first heard that phrase — have long since died but I liked the variety we grew this year, so I rummaged through the browned vines for some hidden pods to save for next year. I once aspired to save all kinds of seeds and catalogued them in envelopes. I’ve simplified in recent years — I only save peas and beans because they have nice big seeds that come in their own container.

Musing about new life coming from this heatwave we’re currently in the middle of; fragile green sprouts that would roast in under an hour in today’s sun; and the short number of summers I have to plant and cultivate a garden, how next year I will do a better job. Or perhaps it was expressed more succinctly in Mad Max: Fury Road:

We have a row of miniature apples (about the size of cherries) that grow on our block, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them for years. A week ago or so Zack turned me on to the “Saving the Season” canning book/memoir by Kevin West (here’s his blog), and I’ve got a pretty serious canning crush on this guy. So I followed his instructions to make crabapple jelly without store-bought pectin, instead making a pectin stock from the fruit, and it was pretty fun. I’ve had all kinds of jam trouble lately but this jelly set up really nicely (maybe too nicely, it’s pretty darn firm in the fridge.) I love adding herbs to jelly, and he recommended thyme, though in hindsight I wish I would have went with rosemary.

Things are just getting off the ground in the vegetable department right now, but there are little handfuls of things to pull – peas, a small zucchini, some parsley or chives, a carrot. Today I got a zucchini before it got huge, and it had an amazing bloom that I thought would make a nice garnish for some leftover pasta. Vegetables quickly sautéed with butter, then a good squeeze of lemon and toss it with the pasta.

Welcome to the Almanac

Caught between wanting to have a farm in the middle of nowhere and loving the city, we consider ourselves the luckiest people on earth to get to do both. Alicia says it best: “We like to pretend we’re farmers.” This site chronicles our adventures in gardening, canning, chickens, and all things agrarian, all with a view of downtown Seattle from the shade of the plum tree in our front yard.